What makes a successful faction?

Interesting concept and a legitimate purpose with active players behind it driving its development.

Note, however, that "taking off" and "faction legitimacy" are not the same things.

 

By legitimacy I meant more along the lines of factions will appear more legitimate if they start with nothing and build themselves up from scratch, increasing their power and influence as they do so. Starting from nothing or almost nothing, I feel, will go a long way to increasing your faction's standing and ultimately show that you actually care. It also makes the climactic rise to the galactic stage all the more awesome. Good examples of this are the Mafia and the now-inactive Outriders. The Outriders actually went through the whole process of constructing their own freaking mines and then selling off the product via StarNet. If that's not dedication, I don't know what is.

I'm frankly not a fan of what I'll call the "Fleet theme," whereby a faction states "we were over there (out of the sector) with all this cool shit and nigh unlimited funding, now we're over here with all this cool shit/nigh unlimited funding!" There are many variants of this (classic examples being "we were once a super-duper well-known faction and we have returned with all our amazing weaponry of doom!" and "but the lore SAYS we have powers of invincibility!") and it frankly gives off the impression that you're both taking the easy way out and don't truly care about your faction, only your op-ness.

And I too would join a faction dedicated to bacon.

 

I can only speak on this from my own personal experience for those looking to start a faction or having trouble getting one to take off smoothly here's what I think. In my opinion first thing is your characters background and personality, both icly and oocly you and your character need to have a strong back bone, there is a lot of challenges you face when starting out a faction, especially by yourself as I did.
The character has to be outgoing and have personality. Drawing in a crowd is difficult if you play a shy or passive character. The storyboard of your character should also support why your character would even suggest starting a faction. If you were just a farmer back on your home land why are you all of a sudden deciding to lead a band of thieves or a band of space pirates. Staying true to your characters background and their personality is #1.

You can't be scared to advertise your business or faction. Commercials don't come on once a week. They come on several times daily. When I first started the tavern several months ago I stood there alone in it. As soon as the tavern was built I began advertising. Starnet, galactic broadcasts, and in person. My invitation to the den was never desperate, it was sincere and welcoming. It was sent out occasionally over a week or two period and when I noticed a small flow of traffic I backed off and let word of mouth carry our name. (To this day were not listed in the colony listings and still have a decent flow of traffic - along with what i stated above the use of screens shots for the location you are advertising via starnet is a powerful tool)

When i sent out a broadcast I made sure I was already on stage ready to play my instrument icly as people walked in, I set the tone and brought life to my quiet tavern. Shortly after a song or two I would go down and engage icly in conversation with whatever visitors my broadcast brought in. I didnt brag or talk about the faction I was trying to rebuild. In fact I felt the visitors out and decided whether or not they would make a good fit in my faction before delving too much into what my goals were. Every one I brought into the faction was hand picked. (Not just some generic application you fill out and yay! Your hired because you filled in the spaces. I wanted people that were going to be an asset and active. Mind you ive had to filter through the good and the bad, as bad rpers still slip through the cracks occasionally)

Ultimately over time I lucked out and found a few guys with leadership abilities, this was key. Together we continued to grow and push forward and gradually reached the point of where we are today. Being active and keeping our faction as busy as possible helped the growth of our organization.(This is difficult to do as the organizations numbers increase but do your best) The whole process took time and determination, but that is the journey. Looking back at it now to see how far it has come its quite rewarding.. From having one man standing alone in that tavern compared to the influx of traffic we get daily now..

Even now we are constantly trying to grow and evolve.
I could go on but this can get rather long, so ill end my post with this.

Be unique, even if you're going to use a generic faction idea try to make it your own.

Captivate your audience.

Build your location before starting.. obviously building an entire city on your own is far fetched, but lets say you came across an abandoned church(which you oocly built) you could take refuge there and use it as a place for your faction to reside.

Have a vision for your faction and stick to it.

Familiarize yourself with the community, go to all the hot colonies let people know you exist. (Do this in a subtle way, example maybe pick one person once a day who you feel would be interested and talk icly about your faction. Oocly people will see it as well and if interested they'll position themselves in a way in which they come to you)

[If anyone has any questions or needs any suggestions feel free to PM me, I'll assist you oocly]